1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tray carrying-in starting mechanism in a disk drive for reproduction/recording of optical disks and magnet-optical disks, such as CD, DVD, MD, etc.
2. Related Art
A disk drive for reproduction of a CD, DVD, etc. comprises a tray that receives thereon a disk and carries it in and out, a drive unit for rotation of the disk, a pickup, and a feeding device to move the pickup. The respective constituent parts are provided with motors needed for the movements thereof and can perform necessary movements through the respective motors.
A tray that receives thereon a disk to carry the disk in and out of a disk drive body is driven by a motor; a gear meshes with a rack that is provided on a side of the tray, and the gear is rotatively driven by a motor. In the case where a tray is present in a disk exchange position and is to be carried into a disk drive, an operating button may be made ON to drive the motor, but mounting the operating button on a front panel gives rise to a need for a substrate and a switch, which results in an increase in cost.
In some cases, when a tray is pushed by hand to retreat slightly, the position of the tray is detected and a motor is started to carry the tray into the disk drive. However, such a tray carrying-in mechanism is constructed such that when a tray is caused to retreat, the gear meshing with the rack is rotated and the gear interlocks with a gear mounted to a spindle of a motor. Accordingly, a load of a certain magnitude acts in retracting the tray to give rise to a weight, thus worsening the operability of the tray.
For example, a “disk recording/reproduction apparatus” according to JP-U-3088851 is known as a tray carrying-in mechanism constructed to retract with a light push force in order to reduce the load on the tray. With such an apparatus, a rail is provided in a tray accommodating section in the disk drive body, the rack is provided on the tray, a rear end portion of the rack is untoothed, and a rack piece is mounted slidably on the rack in a manner so as to overlap the untoothed portion. Leaf springs are mounted on both sides of a rear portion of the tray whereby the tray can be pushed with a slight force, which counteracts the bias of the leaf springs, because the rack and a pinion connected to a drive shaft of the motor are out of mesh with each other when the tray is to be pushed in.
However, such disk recording/reproduction apparatus needs a rack piece, the rack piece must be mounted overlappingly on the rack to be slidable thereon, and the number of parts and manhours in the work of assembling the rack piece are increased. Further, a mechanism is provided such that a slot is formed to allow a tray piece to slide in a predetermined range (L) when carrying-in and carrying-out the tray, and the tray piece collides against and interlocks with a pin provided upright on the tray, but collision noise is generated whenever ends of the slot collide against the pin. Occasionally, the rack piece is increased in slide resistance for some reason, resulting in the apparatus failing to function.
Also, while the leaf springs are used in the disk recording/reproduction apparatus to function to position the tray when carried out, there is the need for a unit to accommodate therein the leaf springs and the rail because the leaf springs are moved together with the tray. As a result, the apparatus is increased in width dimension. Further, an amount by which the tray projects and the timing at which the rack separates from the pinion are varied depending upon the positions in which the leaf springs are mounted, so that individual apparatuses give rise to dispersion so as to be degraded in quality. Further, since the leaf springs come into frictional contact with and slide on the rail when moving when carrying-in and carrying-out the tray, additional power is needed.
The tray carrying-in starting mechanism in conventional disk drives involves the problems described above. It is an object of the invention to solve such problems and to provide a tray carrying-in starting mechanism that is very simple and reduces the load at the start of carrying-in of a tray.